DLC #66 - Shift 2 : Unleashed - Speedhunters Edition

Become Top Dog, and tackle 2 new Career
Branches.

The second and final piece of Shift 2 DLC brings 2 completely new events to the Shift 2 world, and, as with the Legends DLC, a new series of Career events to battle through.

Even though this DLC has 2 additional Career branches this time round (Drag Racing and Standing Mile events), it's undoubtedly a shorter venture than the Legends pack single Career branch.

The "Grim Reaper" trophy, awarded for beating Chris Rado and winning the 1320 Outlaws Championship, and the "Monster Dog" trophy, awarded for beating Koz and winning the Standing Mile Outlaws Championship are practically the sole focus of this DLC.

Again, the difficulty of the events isn't really that challenging until you get to the Championship event, and that's the same for both Career branches. Chris Rado and Koz's cars are much better than anything you're given in the Speedhunters Pack, and you'll most likely just have to resort to using a fully upgraded car from the main game in order to defeat them.

The "Ready to Rock" trophy, awarded for winning an online event in a Speedhunters Edition car, isn't hard, but the online portion of the game isn't exactly buzzing these days, so you need to knock it off at the first available chance if you don't want too long of a wait.

The "Speedhunter" trophy, awarded for completing a Career event in each of the new Speedhunters Edition Cars, requires you to unlock both the Dodge Viper GTS Twins Turbo and the World Racing Pro-FWD Reaper Scion tC (the cars you unlock for beating the new Career rivals), as well as the 12 other Speedhunter cars. This means this trophy will most likely be the final one you unlock, but it is easy to miss out the 2 final cars, so just be aware.

Both Career branches can be beaten within 1-2 hours, due to the very short nature of the new Drag and Standing Mile events, and the other trophies will collectively take no longer than an additional hour or so, depending on how quickly you can win an online event.

DLC #65 - Shift 2 : Unleashed - Legends Pack

Take on a new Career branch, using classic
cars from the 60's and 70's

The Legends Pack DLC adds 2 trophies, attached to the new Legends career branch, with a series of events to beat, culminating in the Legends World Championship event.

The "Rock Hard" trophy, awarded for winning an online event in a car from the Legends pack, is simple enough, and in truth, so is the majority of the new Legends Career branch too.

There are 17 new preliminary events to complete, but only 12 podium finishes are needed to unlock the final event. This is where you can eventually unlock the Gold "Mattley Crue" trophy, awarded for beating Matt Powers and winning the Legend Championship series.

The selection of new events is vast, but even on the hardest difficulty, they're still relatively easy. The only point at which the DLC becomes a challenge is during the Legends Championship itself, simply for the reason that Matt Power's Porsche Carerra 911 is a much more powerful car than anything you have access to. The Championship series is still a 6 race event, which gives you plenty of opportunity to win the series and unlock the trophy, but margin for error is incredibly small if you want to win enough races to win the league.

Overall, this is still a fairly easy DLC package. Winning the solitary online event might require some co-ordination, since you won't be able to race anybody using the Legend cars who hasn't bought the DLC, but is still an easy silver. 

Beating all 12 events needed to unlock the Championship series is easy to the point where it just feels like you're tying up formalities, especially when you consider you only need to podium finish the event to officially complete it. This ensures the branch will take anywhere between 2-3 hours to unlock the Championship, with the series finale (and the subsequent Gold trophy) itself requiring at least another hour on top, with a slight peak in the difficulty of the package when you face off against Matt Powers. 

SimplySupreme Hits 50 Platinum Trophies!

It's funny looking back sometimes. When you reflect on anything in life, you always think about certain things, and give them greater thought than what you usually would. What was good? What was bad? Was it worth it? Any Regrets? Granted, people usually apply this sort of logic to more pressing matters in life than virtual accomplishments, but these shiny pixels still pose the very same questions when you look back upon achieving certain milestones, especially when you consider the amount of time and effort you've dedicated to the cause of achieving every single last one of them over the years of gaming.

When it was announced back in June of 2008 that the Playstation 3 would receive a new update that would rival the popular achievements system that has been used on the Xbox since 2005, a whole 3 years prior to the eventual Playstation equivalent, I wasn't exactly overcome with joy.

Platinum #1 - Where it all began

It was nice to know we finally had something that would track our completion rates to games, but the system was sparse, and not much was known about it at the time of release. A solitary game actually shipped with the system at the time it was rolled out in Firmware 2.40, which was disappointing to say the least, but not totally unexpected. That's the main reason why my initial enthusiasm about the system didn't really take off, mainly because I felt if Sony were deadly serious about the system, they would have prepared more games to be rolled out with full support at the time of the update.

It did show promise though, and although it was merely through intrigue that I popped Uncharted back into my Playstation in the middle of August 2008 when the official trophy patch was released for the game, that was when I was hooked. I hammered out my first Platinum trophy within just a month (going by timestamps, though in reality it was about 1 and a half weeks, due to the inclusion of a summer holiday in between).

It left me wanting more, but there wasn't anything to be had. The build up to Christmas 2008 saw a number of high profile games being announced with trophy support included straight out of the box, including Bioshock 1, Dead Space, Call of Duty : World at War and Mirrors Edge, but there were still games omitting the system or eventually patching trophies at a later date, which still bought about questions regarding Sony's system. 6 months on, and even though I had a handful of games with full support of the system I still only had 4 Platinums to my name by the close of 2008.

Early in 2009, things changed when Sony made it mandatory for games to ship with trophy support straight out of the box. This renewed my faith in the system, and for the first time, I could actually envision it being a big part of the Playstation and how we play games.

Highlights of 2009 included Mirrors Edge, Resident Evil 5, Skate 2, LittleBig Planet, FIFA 09 and Call of Duty : World at War, and my Platinum count rose to 13 by the end of the year. The limits to which certain trophy lists would push your ability went beyond what people would have previously gone to without them, and I've always personally relished the challenge of tough Platinums, where others shy away and stick to safe games. If a game has an easy list, then so be it, it doesn't affect my enjoyment any less than a game that goes to another level, but I see trophies as accomplishments and feats within my gaming preferences, and not just merely just an extension to a arbitrary collection.

The Big Five - Motorstorm : Pacific Rift, GTA IV, Resistance 2, FIFA 10, Shift 2 : Unleashed

There are times when you do question certain things, and trophy hunting can be a physically and mentally draining activity sometimes. 2010 produced a further 11 Platinums, and a slew of big lists were taken down, including Pacific Rift, GTA IV, Resistance 2 and FIFA 10, and although every single one of them was incredibly rewarding, they almost make you hate gaming. I'd always take breaks from trophy hunting, which is the main reason my strike rate is reasonably slow, but I'd have gone insane without relaxing and just zoning out from the whole thing every now and again, whether that be through playing casual games of Call of Duty/FIFA with mates, or just taking a break from gaming in general.

Ultimately though, I never stay away for too long, and 2011 clocked in with 12 more Platinum trophies. The yearly figures seemed to be quite consistent, and my average works out to around 1 Platinum every 6 weeks, which does actually sound surprisingly frequent, when you consider it took me almost 5 years to hit 50 in total.

The Number Crunch

2012 saw a slight dip, with 9 Platinum trophies, but 4 in 2013 thus far have set that track towards a greater route already. It is also important to note the amount of time invested in DLC packages too, which obviously doesn't count towards any lists Platinum, but for those who want to achieve 100%, like myself, games are constantly revisited in order to collect the additional trophies as and when the DLC packs are released. When you're revisiting games at that sort of consistency, and have to devote the time towards unlocking the additional trophies they carry, you will lose time on working towards other Platinums, which will have a detrimental effect on strike rates.

It's true that trophy hunting can be boring sometimes. Whether this be through natural monotony of lists, or just simply being bored of the whole thing entirely, there's always a seemingly invisible pull that will bring you back for more. A game isn't complete in my books until it's at 100%, and my natural enthusiasm for perfectionism continuously drives me towards my goals, no matter what sort of darker areas a list will have me delve into, and there have been plenty. It's just knowing what's at the end that matters, and I've always believed that if you want something enough, you can have it.

Thankfully, there have been way more enjoyable times than there have frustrating ones, and I genuinely believe that trophies have also enhanced my gaming skills in various ways. They aren't just a way for me to pass time, or feel good at something anymore. I always find myself looking for that next challenge and grabbing a Platinum that is achieved through increased skill and determination, and developing a collection that makes you proud to look back at.

Whilst I'm fully aware that 50 Platinum trophies isn't exactly a massive figure in the larger picture of trophy hunting, especially 5 five years on, it is still an achievement I never thought I'd fulfil. It's taken a little while, and it definitely carries it's fair share of ups and downs, but it's still a satisfying milestone, and one I will always be proud of. 

Here's to another 50.

Platinum #50 - Dead Rising 2

Platinum Difficulty Rating - 8/10

In terms of actual difficulty, this list doesn't really do much to overly challenge you (Strangely enough, you could easily argue the game gets more relaxed the further you play it). However, that is more than compensated by what ultimately turns out to be a huge grind-fest, packed with cumulative and collection based trophies for varying elements of the game.

The "Head Trauma" trophy, awarded for using every type of melee weapon on a zombie, is definitely the pick of these cumulative trophies, and the biggest stumbling block regarding these is the fact the game gives you no assistance in relation to which weapons you still need to use to fulfil the trophy requirement.

Granted, it isn't exactly hard to tick them off yourself, and they do thankfully carry over from one playthrough to the next, but there are almost 200 melee weapons in the game, and when you have to go through the list trying to find out which ones you still need to use, it just becomes a massive game of trial and error as you ultimately hope to hit that missing one. You can remedy this by keeping track from the very beginning, but I went for this trophy almost 4 years after I originally started the game, so I never had a chance other than doing it the hard way.

Thankfully, the volume required for most of the other cumulative weapon based trophies isn't anywhere near as bad, and the other stuff, such as spraying all Zombrex posters, retrieving all gifts and changing into every item of clothing is much easier, despite the fact they all have missable elements to keep track of, but if you make sure you don't miss those, you won't struggle too much with them, due to their much more manageable numbers.

The "Duct Tape FTW" trophy, awarded for creating all combo weapons, again, isn't tough by any means, and in reality, it only gets a mention here because it's one of the few trophies that has to be done in 1 playthrough of the game, and progress does not carry over. Some of the parts required for certain combo weapons can only be found from certain points in the game, but most of the parts are generously scattered around or can conveniently be found near workbenches, which makes things alot easier, providing you realise soon enough that it all has to be done in a single game.

This falls in tandem with the "Full Deck" trophy, awarded for collecting all combo cards. You can earn combo cards in a number of ways, through defeating psychopaths, saving survivors, discovering them from hidden posters around Fortune City and simply just crafting the combo weapon yourself, but many of them are exclusively awarded, so you'll need to make sure you know where to get them, especially true for the Tape it or Die combo cards.

The "Hero of Fortune" city trophy, awarded for saving 50 survivors, is where the game shines through with a rare element of skill. There are a total of 65 survivors to be rescued in 1 playthrough, which means you don't really have a great margin of error to hit the target figure. You'll need to plan which missions you should prioritise, especially due to the time limits applied to the game, and some missions can carry up to 4 survivors, so it's best to target those. Some missions won't even appear in some circumstances (More than 8 survivors already on the map, and some missions which are unmarked and don't even appear in the mission feed, for example), so it's important to keep on top of every mission, which can be a tough juggling act to keep up with.

On the subject of survivors, the "Data Miner" trophy, awarded for filling all entries in the notebook, requires you to encounter every character in the game. These cover main characters, survivors and psychopaths, and you'll run into most of them naturally going for the other trophies, but some are slightly harder to find than others.

Alot of these trophies do border on tedious, but the most tedious of all goes to the "Zombie Genocide Master" trophy, awarded for killing 72,000 zombies. Firstly, this has to be done in one playthrough, so you don't even have the flexibility of carrying the kills over, which is hard to take given the fact you could easily play this game through 15-20 times. Secondly, there is only one method for this trophy, to save up $2,000,000 and buy the SUV, and prepare for 7-8 hours of the most mind numbing gameplay you'll ever encounter. It simply involves driving around the Silver Strip, killing zombies and saving every so often in order to repair your SUV and do it all over again. As mentioned, it's dull and takes around 7-8 hours, which is basically a whole playthrough. Not fun.

Despite this game being very heavily emphasised on Single Player, there are a small selection of Multi-player trophies too.

Most of these are easy enough, but the "TK's Favourite" trophy, awarded for playing and winning in all 9 TIR events, is a difficult one to nab. This is mainly because the games are chosen at random, and theres no way for the payers to influence what comes next, meaning when you get down to the last couple, it can be frustrating waiting for them to appear, especially if you miss the chance by losing the round, and have to wait for the next opportunity.

Given the fact that the entire list is full of checklist heavy trophies, and the need to consistently keep track of everything effectively becomes a big game of trial and error, especially when you consider the amount of items that can be missed throughout the game, simply because they only appear during certain missions, or can be obtained from areas that need to be unlocked or visited once, it creates a challenging trophy list, albeit a mentally challenging one, more than anything.

Some skill elements do creep into the game at times, and it can be a very challenging game when you first start out levelling your character, but the sheer amount of time and the constant tedium and repetition are what makes this game truly hard to get through right to the very end.

The amount of trophies that rely on hefty accumulation and collection related tasks is ultimately very overwhelming, and it means you'll end up playing around 10-20 complete playthroughs of the game, which equates to around 100-150 hours, to grab the Platinum. The slightly skill based trophies present a fun edge to the game, but the spotlight is stolen by way too many trophies that just rely on tedium and sheer grinding that test your determination to the very maximum.

Notable Trophies -

Head Trauma - Use every type of melee weapon on a zombie
Duct Tape FTW - Create all combo weapons
Full Deck - Collect all combo cards
Hero of Fortune City - Save 50 Survivors
Data Miner - Fill all entries in the notebook
Zombie Genocide Master - Kill 72,000 zombies
TK's Favourite - Play and win in all 9 TIR events

Hardest Trophy -

Hero of Fortune City
Save 50 Survivors

DLC #64 - Worms : Ultimate Mayhem Single Player Pack

Attempt to beat the clock, in a series
of spin off challenges

The second DLC pack for Ultimate Mayhem shifts focus onto the Single Player aspect of the game, with 6 trophies catered around a series of new challenges.

The only Gold trophy in the package, "Clock Watching", awarded for beating the times on all new challenges and the new Deathmatch challenge, is the primary focus of the trophy set, and if you're striving towards this trophy, you'll unlock the other 5 in the list automatically along the way.

There are 10 new challenges in total, all focused around using the games weapons to accomplish certain goals, and the majority of them are incredibly easy to beat, even under the target times you'll need to unlock all trophies.

There are a couple of challenges that might require a handful of attempts, but there's nothing that a little bit of practice won't solve, and where the Multiplayer Pack actually presented a stiff challenge, this package is very much the opposite, and you can unlock every trophy available in the set within 1-2 hours.

DLC #63 - Worms : Ultimate Mayhem Multiplayer Map Pack

More maps, More Mayhem!

The Ultimate Mayhem MP pack throws a handful of new maps into the game, along with 6 trophies specifically for the online portion of the game too.

The sole gold trophy, "Feel the Power of the Darkside", awarded for winning a ranked match with 2 or more Worms remaining on each new map, is the pick of the list, and is quite a solid feat to achieve. It requires alot of tactical nouse to be able to keep 2 worms alive by the time you've beaten your opponent, and power weapons can easily have the capability to wipe out a Worm or two in one go, so you need to be fast in your approach at dispatching the enemy worms. Thankfully, forfeiting opponents will count towards the trophy too, meaning it is possible to beat somebody into an early quit and still get the reward from it, which sometimes turns out to be more effective than straight out winning the game.

There are 5 new maps to win on, but the trophy (and a few others in the package) suffers from poor game design, as you can never have any influence on which map to play on, and therefore, things turn very tedious, very fast when you get to that final map you still need to win on and it just doesn't want to turn up in the map rotation. Even more frustrating when you lose, or don't have 2 worms left when you win, meaning you have to replay the map and go through the motions of waiting for it to appear again. Frustrating.

The "Dedicated Ranker" trophy, awarded for winning a ranked match on every new map, is pretty self explanatory, but will be achieved in tandem with the "Feel the Power of the Darkside" trophy. 

Apart from this, the "I Love New" trophy, awarded for playing each of the new maps 5 times, is thankfully made alot of easier by the fact all modes count, and can therefore be achieved in an offline local game. Imagine trying to play 25 matches across 5 maps with an online component that doesn't even allow you to have any influence on map selection.

The rest of the trophies in the pack will come along the way,  but in all honesty, the toughest thing about this package was trying to find the right games to get into. You don't get the option to create lobbies, and there's no sort of voting process for maps, so you just need to hope you get dealt the maps you need in order to fulfil the trophy requirements. It can add a fair whack of time to overall completion, especially when you consider how baron the online portion of the game can be at times, but when the map rotation is feeling kind, it isn't really too difficult in terms of required skill.

Platinum #49 - Worms : Ultimate Mayhem

Platinum Difficulty Rating - 6/10

Despite being a very small list, this still passes by as a reasonably challenging game to Platinum, though most of this is entirely down to the Gold trophies alone.

None of the bronze trophies are really worth shouting about, however, the "I Am The Worminator" trophy, awarded for killing more than 3 worms in one turn in a ranked match, is practically down to luck, and just hoping you fall into a scenario where you can take out a close bunch of enemy worms. 

Using a high impact weapon, such as the Weapon Factory, and making sure it has a good blast radius, is most likely your best opportunity to knock off at least 4 enemy worms in 1 go, and you'll definitely need to be playing against more than 1 team too, given the fact it's extremely unlikely you'll be in a situation where you can kill off an entire team in 1 go.

The rest of the Bronze trophies, which make up almost half of the whole list, are very easy, and even just complete throw-aways in some instances, and the Silver trophies, though not exactly as easy, can still be achieved through natural progression through the game, and go towards the Gold trophies in most instances anyway.

It is relevant to make an exception to the "Embrace the Darkness" trophy, though, awarded for winning 10 games with the last hit coming from a Sentry Gun. It's tough to manufacture a situation where you can kill the final enemy with a Sentry Gun, and given the fact you need to replicate it 10 times in total, it is the stand-out Silver in this list. 

It is always easier to leave 1 enemy worm remaining, and set up a Sentry Gun in or around their area, and hope that they trigger it off when they take their turn. You may need to be very persistent, but this is sound tactic that should be effective in fulfilling enough wins to unlock the trophy.

However, the Gold trophies are the ones that take this game's difficulty into the upper end of the scale, with all 6 of them being culpable to some degree of extent.

Starting with the hardest, the "Total Ranker" trophy, awarded for winning 40 online ranked matches across 3 games modes, will take anywhere within the region of 20-25 hours for the average player alone, though this timescale will depend on your win to loss ratio. The relevance of 3 game modes is largely insignificant, because you can do the bare minimum of 1 win in 2 modes, and 38 wins in another, and since Deathmatch seems to be the only mode that people indulge in online, it's just aswell theres no limit on your win distribution.

The "Billy No Mates" trophy, awarded for completing the single player story mode (which contains 26 missions), will take around 5-10 hours, and barring a couple of missions, is incredibly straight forward.

Directly tied into this trophy, is the "Doing it Solo" trophy, awarded for completing the story, challenges and tutorials. The tutorials are easy enough, as you'd expect, but some of the challenges can be deceptively tough, which are mostly quick levels based around beating target times. You'll need to be fast and efficient for some of them though.

Aside from the main Ultimate Mayhem campaign, there's also the Worms 3D campaign, which is covered by the "Fan of the Arts" trophy, awarded for collecting all gallery images available. There are an additional 35 missions within the Worms 3D campaign, with artwork available for beating every single one of them, meaning you'll need to complete the entire campaign in order to unlock this trophy. However, just like the Ultimate Mayhem campaign, there isn't alot to trouble you here, aside the odd mission that might spike the difficulty a touch.

The "Genghis Worm" trophy, awarded for killing a total of 600 worms, might seem like a bit of a grind, but there's enough content in the trophy list for you to be able to achieve this number way before you grab the Platinum anyway. It isn't exactly a modest total by any stretch, but it won't keep you slogging away at the game way after you've finished everything else either.

The final Gold trophy, "Shop-A-Holic", is actually the only secret trophy in the list, and is awarded for unlocking the Kitchen Sink game style, which is only available after everything else in the shop has been purchased. There's a fairly wide selection of items and weapons in the shop, and a decent accumulation of coins is needed to unlock them all, which can be earned through the beating missions within the games single player modes. It isn't exactly tough, but it will be one of the last trophies you unlock, due to the sheer wealth of content you need to purchase before unlocking the Kitchen Sink game style.

Ultimately, this game essentially boils down to the various Gold trophies within. The list is quite sparse of trophies that are difficult in terms of actual skill required, but there's still a pretty hefty time investment, clocking in at around 40-50 hours to complete everything on offer.

Notable Trophies -

I Am The Worminator - Kill more than 3 worms in one turn in a Ranked Match
Embrace The Darkness - Win 10 games with the last hit coming from a sentry gun, all modes count
Total Ranker - Win 40 online Ranked matches across at least 3 game modes
Doing It Solo - Complete the story, challenges and tutorials
Fan Of The Arts - Collect all the gallery images available
Genghis Worm - Kill a total of 600 worms, all modes count
Shop-A-Holic - Purchase the Kichen Sink game style

Hardest Trophy -

Total Ranker
Win 40 online Ranked matches across at least 3 game modes.

DLC #62 - Bulletstorm - Blood Symphony

More Echoes, More Anarchy!

The trophy structure of the Blood Symphony list follows the same pattern as the previous Gun Sonata DLC.

There are 3 trophies attached to the new Anarchy levels, all awarded for performing certain skillshots with the said levels. As before, none of these are particularly difficult, and you can easily unlock them all within half an hour or so.

The only attempt this DLC package makes of offering a challenge comes from the 2 trophies tied to the new Echo levels.

The "Up-Lifting" trophy, awarded for killing all enemies whilst riding the lift in the Monorail Factory echo, isn't exactly hard, but you do need to be aware of the fact that all enemies in the previous room, prior to the lift section, do also need to be killed for the trophy to unlock, which isn't expressed within the trophy description, and could very easily catch you out.

The " Fast Track" trophy, awarded for killing all snipers on the rooftop before the DNA bomb explodes on the Mean Street echo, also requires a slight element of skill, though this is mainly down to the fact you have to kill 10 enemies with just 10 bullets at your disposal, given the fact the rooftop section has no dropkit available to replenish your ammo, so efficiency is important.

Even still, this is another short DLC package that takes roughly the same amount of time to complete as the Gun Sonata pack, clocking in at around 1-2 hours.

DLC #61 - Bulletstorm - Gun Sonata

Indulge in some more death-fuelled
showboating.

Gun Sonata adds 5 trophies to Bulletstorm, catering to the Echo and Anarchy modes of the game.

There are 3 trophies distributed to the new Anarchy levels added by the DLC package, all of which are awarded for pulling off certain skillshots within the anarchy levels. With the correct tactics applied, you can snap all of these up well within half an hour or so, which is very generous when you consider the "Heart Attack" trophy, awarded for killing a boss with the Hot Dog cart in the Hotel Elysium map, is actually a gold trophy.

There are also 2 trophies allocated to the new echoes levels, but again, there's nothing here that will cause you a great amount of trouble.

Just for the sake of stretching things a bit, the "Last Blood" trophy, awarded for killing all enemies on the walkways before the explosions do, at the end of Guns of Stygia, requires some fast reactions and deft shooting skill. However, the only thing that's slightly frustrating about the trophy is the fact you have to get to the end of the level again every time you fail, in order to reach the point at which you can retry for the trophy, but once you realise you can run straight to it, it makes it much less of a burden if you actually do need more than a few attempts.

Regardless, you can still unlock all 5 trophies within 1-2 hours of gameplay, making it a very easy DLC package.

Platinum #48 - Shift 2 : Unleashed

Platinum Difficulty Rating - 9/10

Most of the single player portion of this list is centred around the career mode, and winning enough events to reach the final branch of races within each discipline.

The "Dominator" trophy, awarded for beating all the rivals, is definitely the core focus of the career mode, and beating all 9 rivals in the game will require heavy mastering of various disciplines and winning a whole host of events in order to earn final races against said rivals. Some events are seriously punishing in difficulty too, with the Drift, Time Attack and Endurance branches deserving of notable mentions when it comes to the latter stages and the eventual rival event.

You'll also need to beat a number of career events to unlock the rival race, so there is a distinct time-based element to this trophy too. You won't need to beat them all, but each branch will need a large amount of progression towards the end before you unlock the eventual rival race and get a shot at beating them all.

The "Bounty Hunter" trophy, awarded for earning a total of $10,000,000 during your career, can be accumulated along the way, but it's a hefty figure to knock off, and there's a highly likely chance you'll be grinding this one out beyond the end-game of the career mode. Given how long the career mode can be, it's a pretty huge total to accumulate, and the best way to go about it is through replaying the final events over and over again, which is where the most prize money is handed out. 

The latter events within the game are where the biggest amounts of money are paid out, and you're best off just grinding out these area of the game for any additional funds you need to accumulate. Needless to say, this does eventually become fairly tedious, and does add a good few hours onto the total Platinum time.

Slightly tied into this, the "Leno Would be Proud" trophy, awarded for having at least 1 car from every manufacturer in your garage, will also take a fair chunk to time to achieve, and also be very costly in the process. Some of the more prestigious car dealers only offer cars worth millions of dollars, and with almost 50 manufacturers in the game, the amount of money required to own a vehicle from each of them is towards the larger end of the scale. Some cars can be awarded for free through the career mode, but the vast majority will have to be purchased, and this most often includes the more expensive cars in the game.

The "Day Walker" and "Night Master" trophies, both awarded for mastering every track in the game under day and night conditions respectively, adds a huge element of skill to the list, with a variety of tracks that require pinpoint precision and accuracy to master. Mastering a track requires perfection of the racing line and every corner, and certain variations of tracks are seriously difficult to pull off without some extent of trial and error and/or sheer skill. 

These trophies alone definitely ramp up the overall difficulty of the list, especially with almost 100 different tracks and locations to master in total. The vast majority of the tracks just simply become matter of loading the track up in a quick event and blasting out a routine lap or two, but some of them are seriously difficult to nail, and will require genuine racing skill and prowess in order to achieve mastery. 

There are a couple of other trophies that will attempt to stumble you, including the "Race License" trophy, awarded for winning 75 career events on hard difficulty, which is a very steep difficulty level that definitely sets a high skill benchmark for the player, though you can actually play the opening events repeatedly to rack up this number, which are easier in comparison to the latter stages, so it might not seem so bad for those who may struggle later on. However, the harder difficulties in the game pay out alot more prize money, which is an extremely useful thing to take note of when you consider how much cash you need to accumulate for some of the aforementioned monetary based trophies.

Regarding the Multiplayer portion, there is no let up on the difficulty presented within this list.

The "King of the Hill" trophy, awarded for winning your first Driver Duel Championship crown, is without doubt one of the toughest bronze trophies available in any game, and requires you to win 7 events in the row without being beaten. Starting from round 1, every win takes you a step closer to the Championship round, and a loss at anytime takes you back down to stage 1. 

In all honesty, it's the blatant design flaws of the game that make this trophy difficult to achieve. You'll never get matched up with anyone else who isn't at the same stage as you, which means you could quite conceivably sit within a round for hours and not encounter a single opponent, especially at the latter stages of the tournament. There's also no ghost mode enabled for races, meaning rounds just mostly degenerate into glorified destruction derbies where it will effectively come down to whoever can ruin their opponent first and race ahead. It makes the whole thing an arduous, and also nerve racking slog, and this trophy alone is a massive achievement in it's own right.

Apart from that, the "Notorious" trophy, awarded for playing for 10 hours in total online, is self explanatory, but you will most definitely knock most of this, if not all of it, out during the King of the Hill quest. 

The same goes for the "I. Am. Iron. Man." trophy awarded for winning 5 consecutive online events, but you need to win a total of 7 rounds to become King of the Hill and unlock that trophy, so it's better to go for these two trophies in tandem. It just becomes a harder task if you try and race multiple opponents and attempt to beat them all for 5 consecutive races, so despite how hard the King of the Hill mode is, it's still probably the easiest chance you have of accumulating 5 wins in a row anyway.

This Platinum has practically everything, with a large element of skill required and plenty of time to invest too. There are alot of frustrations along the way, and certain trophies will require much persistence and determination to achieve. However, it makes for a very rewarding Platinum, and comes extremely close to the full 10. Is it tougher than Motorstorm : Pacific Rift? No, but it only just misses out.

Notable Trophies -

Dominator - Beaten all the Rivals
Bounty Hunter - Earned $10,000,000 total during your career
Leno would be proud - Have at least one car from each manufacturer in your Garage
Day Walker - Mastered every location in day or dusk
Night Rider - Mastered every location at night
Race License - Won 75 Career events on Hard difficulty
King of the Hill - Won your first Driver Duel Championship Crown
Notorious - Played Online for over 10 hours total

Hardest Trophy -

King of the Hill
Won your first Driver Duel Championship Crown